From this dopey Facebook page I follow sheepishly and embarrassingly, which dispenses no actual useful advice: "If your soulmate knocked on your door right now, how prepared are you emotionally and physically?"
My answer: "While I got a bitchin' haircut today, I'm already in my loungewear for the evening. And I don't have makeup on. But he's seen me in far worse condition, so it's all semantics. I'd open the door and let him in." Emotionally? I'd tell him, "It's about time you shat or got off the pot."
Speaking of the past tense of "shit," it's been a hot topic of debate between Luke and his friend, Paul, over XBox Live this weekend. Paul maintains the correct past tense is "shitted," while I learned in college that it is, in fact, "shat." Probably in Olde English, but come on. You don't say "I sitted on the couch." You "sat on the couch." Shit/shat. Sit/sat. Luke was like, "Trust me, dude, my mom has an English degree!" which, admittedly, doesn't say a whole lot about what I'm actually doing with my English degree. But goddamnit, if my son's going to utilize profanity in context, it better be correctly.
One of my college friends, Shilpa, who comments frequently on all matters of pop culture, was watching the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Induction today. (Or, as I call it, Jann Wenner's Annual Wankfest.) She said:
My favorite Rock n Roll Hall of Fame moment of the weekend? Coldplay (I know, mainstream, but I admittedly do like their music) ode'ing The Beasties' Adam Yauch the other night at the Hollywood Bowl with the most beautiful rendition of one of my teenage rage songs (no, follow me here...):
Luke was playing loud rap in his room, overpowering my Nine Inch Nails, which is difficult to do. I suppose we mutually could've put our earbuds in, but we didn't. The older I get and the older Luke gets, the more "Fight For Your Right To Party" fits his generation and not mine. I'm now the smoking, hypocrite parent telling my kid to turn down his noise and to make sure he thinks smoking is nasty and vile as a habit. It wasn't until I walked into his room and heard he was listening, in fact, to Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" and not actual, awful rap, that I chilled out by taking my computer downstairs instead.
A Twitter friend is promoting a book, "101 Natural Highs for An Amazing Drug-Free Life." Oh drat, it's only available on Kindle. Having a Kindle would be a natural high. What's also very telling? It's only $2.99 on Amazon. That makes me wonder if it's only a pamphlet. It also makes me wonder if my Twitter friend has ever *done* drugs in her life, for I have yet to find a natural high higher than any high I experienced while high. What about sex, you might ask? It doesn't even come remotely close. (If my memory serves me correctly.)
Another bittersweet Twitter factoid of the day (that has no practical relevance in my life) was that there are over 20 kisses (or kissing techniques) described in the Kama Sutra. (It was re-tweeted by a friend of mine.) Of this, I was not aware. Who the hell knew? And who the hell knows all of them? I suppose it's something to put on my "Things To Know Before I Reincarnate" list.
Then Mrs. Common Law Wayne Coyne posted a picture on Twitter today of a bottle of absinthe she picked up in Spain. I couldn't help but remember a conversation I had about absinthe with the doctor I worked for who ok'd the Rx diarrhea pills for me, then reneged on said Rx, then didn't have the cajones required to fight the whole ordeal out with me face-to-face and instead, and had his 3 hapless partners give me the much-ballyhooed ax, blah blah blah, old news. When discussing absinthe with said doctor, he happened to know that THAT shit'll completely fuck you up. I think I told him I had friends who had consumed it before but that I'd never tried it, and at that point anyway, it was moot as I was sober. Having received his medical degree south of the border, let's say, it's a safe bet he might know a thing or two about absinthe that I would not know. His cool-o-meter skyrocketed after that conversation then promptly plummeted into the barrows of utter disrespect.
In world news, a Socialist president is taking over France. I'm sure if Kate could do cartwheels at the moment, she would. It also means that Eric Clapton's hussy Italian ex-girlfriend, Carla Bruni, who married the incumbent president of France, will no longer hold the title of First Lady. By all accounts, she was *no* lady. Further, it means I can almost take the country of France off my black list of Places I'd Never Step Into Again To Save My Life. Apart from the notion of riding the Chunnel Train, zipping from England to France, which was freakishly cool, my experience in France was Les Miserables. My mom was reading an article in today's Trib about avoiding long lines in European tourist spots, including the Eiffel Tower. "Did you have to wait in a line like that, Annie?" she asked. "Yes," I answered, "for about an hour and a half." Was it worth it? In a word, no. Not AS AWFUL as walking up the entirety of Notre Dame in the dark, up weathered-down, ancient cement steps in the dark, whereupon I asked Craig for a divorce a week after our marriage for even MAKING us go there, but damn close.
An article went around this afternoon about a young girl who couldn't get a date to her prom, and her letters to a sports star and Justin Bieber went unanswered, so she took a cardboard cut-out of Bieber to the prom as her date and was subsequently the queen of the proverbial ball. Flashbulbs! More photobombing than went on when I was trying to visit with Steven backstage at the Lips show (which was really annoying but made for some really intense pictures of us talking if you ignore the photobombers)! Utter insanity! Immediately, I wondered why I didn't get the idea to take a cardboard cut-out of George Harrison to either of my proms, which I didn't go to in high school. I also wondered how Marcia Brady so easily convinced Davy Jones to be her date to the prom on "The Brady Bunch." He went from falling pop star to legend in a matter of 23 minutes of television in the early 70's, never mind that the date had statutory rape written all over it. Oh wait, it was fictitious.
(Now that I think about it, perhaps taking a cardboard cut-out of George Harrison around with me to seedy neighborhoods in Chicago would beat a blank, as I'm certainly not asking Craig to return to the Tattoo Factory with me, who knows about Tatus and my mother has objections to me asking any of my other able-bodied but already-attached male friends...who have cars....they can drive....seriously, the only single guys I'm friends with have no cars and it's hard for me to drive in the dark, particularly to seedy neighborhoods.)
Anyway, fully realizing that at age 18, I didn't have to Fight As Hard for My Right To Party, Christa and I loaded up the trunk of her 2nd Accord (we'd totaled the 1st one, not our fault, after school one day, soberly) with a cooler full of tequila, triple sec, margarita mix, a blender, salt, beer and cheddar cheese (booze courtesy of my of-age cousin) and went up to a spa in Lake Geneva and proceeded to Keith Moon the hotel room (we WROTE in the Gideon's Bible!) and relax in a hot tub. THAT was senior prom for us, which no lilac corsage, frilly dress or pimple-faced teenage boy could've made any more awesome. You bet your sweet ass we drove 55 mph safely into Wisconsin with as much shit as we had loaded in the trunk. Somehow, Alice Cooper on the television got involved, as per a photograph I remember from the experience, and while I think we spared the television, a couple of Sharpie markers, revenge on a boy and teenage tomfoolery probably quintupled our hotel bill, which her parents paid for. Ah, the good old days....
Another snippet of my Life Way Before Recovery (which I and my fellow friends in recovery can now joke about) with dear ones can be summed up in the following quote from Hunter S. Thompson that was also on Facebook and Twitter feeds today: "Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested."
We had a big meeting this afternoon for Luke's summer work camp, involving all of the participants, the leaders, the parents and Pastor Dave. He copped a squat by Luke and I, and we we formed as a group (with a neighboring teen girl) to go over the opening devotional. We had to pick one of two stories of Jesus' miracles: 1) Jesus Heals an Official's Son or 2) Two Blind Men Receive Sight. It took us most of our devotional time deciding on a story, but we decided on the blind fellas. I pushed for that one because I'd rather see two lowly people receive a miracle than an official's son, hence our long debate time. Pastor said, "How did the blind guys know Jesus was coming down the road?" Luke and I said, "Uh, there was a crowd following Jesus. They were probably going 'Jesus! Jesus!' Don't you think?" "Oh yeah," Pastor said, like this was the first time he was hearing this story. Not only that, but we told him Jesus' disciples were following Him and they, too, were probably saying His name. The lowly blind men called out to Jesus, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!" So Jesus stopped and, as Pastor said, "asked the guys what they wanted Him to do..." (They asked the Lord for their sight, knowing He was going around as of late performing miracles.) But we couldn't help but laugh the way Pastor phrased it: "Jesus said, 'Whaddya want ME to do about it?'" Anyway, naturally Jesus touched their eyes and BAM, they could see.
Thus far, the guest list for my birthday party consists of 3 recovering alcoholics, my oldest girlfriend, my former bandmate/soul sister, and Pastor Dave and possibly his extended clan, who plans to stop by after church. I have a couple of maybe's and several folks who haven't RSVP'd yet.
Luke and I walked into my hair salon for haircuts this afternoon, right around the time it had been thunder storming. We walked into a flurry of a chatterbox of a woman with a digital camera. I updated my Facebook status:
In disclosing the story to my mother later, I apologized for saying "old lady" when the lady was, in fact, probably around my mom's age. Whoops. I went on to later comment, which I'm pasting in favor of time-saving to tell the rest of the story by this woman, who drove us literally nuts, to the point where Luke almost passed out:
Another friend of mine sent me a private message on Facebook today, acknowledging that it was a remembrance of Bereaved Mother's Day, for mothers who've lost children or babies or embryos, or their uteri. She knows I grieved the loss of my reproductive organs (aside from my ovaries) and I don't talk about it much, and have sort of blocked from my mind the miscarriage I had in 1998. I told her it was just God's way of letting me know that something was terribly wrong and that it wasn't time for me to have a baby. I was addicted to narcotics when I got pregnant and had a miscarriage the first time, in August of 1998. I was only 8 weeks along, and it was all relatively event-free. I got clean in February of 1999 and conceived Luke in May of 1999, when I was healthy (I also quit smoking for 7 years at that point, only to start up again upon my separation.). I was lucky and blessed with a healthy son, the only child God chose to put in my care, even after failed attempts at having another child, fertility drugs (you want to see me fucked up? Throw me on fertility drugs, whoa!) and extensive testing, only to find out I had too much scar tissue from my c-section with Luke to reproduce again. I'm very lucky I had the child I had, and he's more than enough for me to handle.
Pastor Dave thinks a week of work camp would do my soul good. I kinda implied a swift "No way!" but let him explain what he got out of his work camp trips through the years. Face it, I'm sending Luke more to man him up a little than witness to people about God, though he'll do that too. It just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea. Camp Hilton? Camp Hyatt? Anywhere but Camp Miklasz is cool, as long as there's air conditioning, a cozy bed and a nice shower. Too bad I can't rent a house for a week up in Michigan and chill out lakeside, like SOME people I know.
Tomorrow, I'm meeting with Luke's principal to talk about the bullying. Here's praying I don't go mental on her, don't swear and present the facts as I know them, as they were relayed to me by my boy. My depression has lifted enough where I'm ready for my Mama Bear claws to tease without actually jabbing someone in the heart, though I did tell Luke tonight to tell his idiot friend, who said our family was full of losers, if he knew what "roadkill" was. Shame on me.
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” - Bertrand Russell
With that said, the current events of my virtual universe have to come to an end so I can get some sleep. Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow.
My answer: "While I got a bitchin' haircut today, I'm already in my loungewear for the evening. And I don't have makeup on. But he's seen me in far worse condition, so it's all semantics. I'd open the door and let him in." Emotionally? I'd tell him, "It's about time you shat or got off the pot."
Speaking of the past tense of "shit," it's been a hot topic of debate between Luke and his friend, Paul, over XBox Live this weekend. Paul maintains the correct past tense is "shitted," while I learned in college that it is, in fact, "shat." Probably in Olde English, but come on. You don't say "I sitted on the couch." You "sat on the couch." Shit/shat. Sit/sat. Luke was like, "Trust me, dude, my mom has an English degree!" which, admittedly, doesn't say a whole lot about what I'm actually doing with my English degree. But goddamnit, if my son's going to utilize profanity in context, it better be correctly.
One of my college friends, Shilpa, who comments frequently on all matters of pop culture, was watching the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Induction today. (Or, as I call it, Jann Wenner's Annual Wankfest.) She said:
"As the RR HALL OF FAME comes to an end, i can't help but think that the # of times drug usage was mentioned in speeches, I think they should re-name the event the YOU REALLY SHOULDN'T BE STANDING UP HERE, YOU LUCKY SOB Ceremony."My response: "Shilpa, that's what my LIFE should be called."
My favorite Rock n Roll Hall of Fame moment of the weekend? Coldplay (I know, mainstream, but I admittedly do like their music) ode'ing The Beasties' Adam Yauch the other night at the Hollywood Bowl with the most beautiful rendition of one of my teenage rage songs (no, follow me here...):
Luke was playing loud rap in his room, overpowering my Nine Inch Nails, which is difficult to do. I suppose we mutually could've put our earbuds in, but we didn't. The older I get and the older Luke gets, the more "Fight For Your Right To Party" fits his generation and not mine. I'm now the smoking, hypocrite parent telling my kid to turn down his noise and to make sure he thinks smoking is nasty and vile as a habit. It wasn't until I walked into his room and heard he was listening, in fact, to Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" and not actual, awful rap, that I chilled out by taking my computer downstairs instead.
A Twitter friend is promoting a book, "101 Natural Highs for An Amazing Drug-Free Life." Oh drat, it's only available on Kindle. Having a Kindle would be a natural high. What's also very telling? It's only $2.99 on Amazon. That makes me wonder if it's only a pamphlet. It also makes me wonder if my Twitter friend has ever *done* drugs in her life, for I have yet to find a natural high higher than any high I experienced while high. What about sex, you might ask? It doesn't even come remotely close. (If my memory serves me correctly.)
Another bittersweet Twitter factoid of the day (that has no practical relevance in my life) was that there are over 20 kisses (or kissing techniques) described in the Kama Sutra. (It was re-tweeted by a friend of mine.) Of this, I was not aware. Who the hell knew? And who the hell knows all of them? I suppose it's something to put on my "Things To Know Before I Reincarnate" list.
Then Mrs. Common Law Wayne Coyne posted a picture on Twitter today of a bottle of absinthe she picked up in Spain. I couldn't help but remember a conversation I had about absinthe with the doctor I worked for who ok'd the Rx diarrhea pills for me, then reneged on said Rx, then didn't have the cajones required to fight the whole ordeal out with me face-to-face and instead, and had his 3 hapless partners give me the much-ballyhooed ax, blah blah blah, old news. When discussing absinthe with said doctor, he happened to know that THAT shit'll completely fuck you up. I think I told him I had friends who had consumed it before but that I'd never tried it, and at that point anyway, it was moot as I was sober. Having received his medical degree south of the border, let's say, it's a safe bet he might know a thing or two about absinthe that I would not know. His cool-o-meter skyrocketed after that conversation then promptly plummeted into the barrows of utter disrespect.
In world news, a Socialist president is taking over France. I'm sure if Kate could do cartwheels at the moment, she would. It also means that Eric Clapton's hussy Italian ex-girlfriend, Carla Bruni, who married the incumbent president of France, will no longer hold the title of First Lady. By all accounts, she was *no* lady. Further, it means I can almost take the country of France off my black list of Places I'd Never Step Into Again To Save My Life. Apart from the notion of riding the Chunnel Train, zipping from England to France, which was freakishly cool, my experience in France was Les Miserables. My mom was reading an article in today's Trib about avoiding long lines in European tourist spots, including the Eiffel Tower. "Did you have to wait in a line like that, Annie?" she asked. "Yes," I answered, "for about an hour and a half." Was it worth it? In a word, no. Not AS AWFUL as walking up the entirety of Notre Dame in the dark, up weathered-down, ancient cement steps in the dark, whereupon I asked Craig for a divorce a week after our marriage for even MAKING us go there, but damn close.
An article went around this afternoon about a young girl who couldn't get a date to her prom, and her letters to a sports star and Justin Bieber went unanswered, so she took a cardboard cut-out of Bieber to the prom as her date and was subsequently the queen of the proverbial ball. Flashbulbs! More photobombing than went on when I was trying to visit with Steven backstage at the Lips show (which was really annoying but made for some really intense pictures of us talking if you ignore the photobombers)! Utter insanity! Immediately, I wondered why I didn't get the idea to take a cardboard cut-out of George Harrison to either of my proms, which I didn't go to in high school. I also wondered how Marcia Brady so easily convinced Davy Jones to be her date to the prom on "The Brady Bunch." He went from falling pop star to legend in a matter of 23 minutes of television in the early 70's, never mind that the date had statutory rape written all over it. Oh wait, it was fictitious.
(Now that I think about it, perhaps taking a cardboard cut-out of George Harrison around with me to seedy neighborhoods in Chicago would beat a blank, as I'm certainly not asking Craig to return to the Tattoo Factory with me, who knows about Tatus and my mother has objections to me asking any of my other able-bodied but already-attached male friends...who have cars....they can drive....seriously, the only single guys I'm friends with have no cars and it's hard for me to drive in the dark, particularly to seedy neighborhoods.)
Anyway, fully realizing that at age 18, I didn't have to Fight As Hard for My Right To Party, Christa and I loaded up the trunk of her 2nd Accord (we'd totaled the 1st one, not our fault, after school one day, soberly) with a cooler full of tequila, triple sec, margarita mix, a blender, salt, beer and cheddar cheese (booze courtesy of my of-age cousin) and went up to a spa in Lake Geneva and proceeded to Keith Moon the hotel room (we WROTE in the Gideon's Bible!) and relax in a hot tub. THAT was senior prom for us, which no lilac corsage, frilly dress or pimple-faced teenage boy could've made any more awesome. You bet your sweet ass we drove 55 mph safely into Wisconsin with as much shit as we had loaded in the trunk. Somehow, Alice Cooper on the television got involved, as per a photograph I remember from the experience, and while I think we spared the television, a couple of Sharpie markers, revenge on a boy and teenage tomfoolery probably quintupled our hotel bill, which her parents paid for. Ah, the good old days....
Another snippet of my Life Way Before Recovery (which I and my fellow friends in recovery can now joke about) with dear ones can be summed up in the following quote from Hunter S. Thompson that was also on Facebook and Twitter feeds today: "Sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind but falling in love and not getting arrested."
We had a big meeting this afternoon for Luke's summer work camp, involving all of the participants, the leaders, the parents and Pastor Dave. He copped a squat by Luke and I, and we we formed as a group (with a neighboring teen girl) to go over the opening devotional. We had to pick one of two stories of Jesus' miracles: 1) Jesus Heals an Official's Son or 2) Two Blind Men Receive Sight. It took us most of our devotional time deciding on a story, but we decided on the blind fellas. I pushed for that one because I'd rather see two lowly people receive a miracle than an official's son, hence our long debate time. Pastor said, "How did the blind guys know Jesus was coming down the road?" Luke and I said, "Uh, there was a crowd following Jesus. They were probably going 'Jesus! Jesus!' Don't you think?" "Oh yeah," Pastor said, like this was the first time he was hearing this story. Not only that, but we told him Jesus' disciples were following Him and they, too, were probably saying His name. The lowly blind men called out to Jesus, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!" So Jesus stopped and, as Pastor said, "asked the guys what they wanted Him to do..." (They asked the Lord for their sight, knowing He was going around as of late performing miracles.) But we couldn't help but laugh the way Pastor phrased it: "Jesus said, 'Whaddya want ME to do about it?'" Anyway, naturally Jesus touched their eyes and BAM, they could see.
Thus far, the guest list for my birthday party consists of 3 recovering alcoholics, my oldest girlfriend, my former bandmate/soul sister, and Pastor Dave and possibly his extended clan, who plans to stop by after church. I have a couple of maybe's and several folks who haven't RSVP'd yet.
Luke and I walked into my hair salon for haircuts this afternoon, right around the time it had been thunder storming. We walked into a flurry of a chatterbox of a woman with a digital camera. I updated my Facebook status:
"Ok. They're playing Hole in the hair salon. Cool. Conversely, an old lady was showing me pics of not only a downed tree in her neighborhood but also her impressive Easter ham on her camera. There's punk poetic justice when trees fall on 3 Mercedes & BMW's in a McMansion driveway....my stylist is having fun cutting off Luke's Art Garfunkel mop."
In disclosing the story to my mother later, I apologized for saying "old lady" when the lady was, in fact, probably around my mom's age. Whoops. I went on to later comment, which I'm pasting in favor of time-saving to tell the rest of the story by this woman, who drove us literally nuts, to the point where Luke almost passed out:
Luke and I heard the same story about 6 times, with photos from both of this couple's cameras and phones. We had Al and his wife, Allison, who, in case you're interested in robbing them, live in a cul-de-sac on Redfield off of Touhy and Dee in Park Ridge and they're not home right now. Lightning struck a giant tree in their neighbor (kiddy-corner)'s front yard, which fell upon their bevy of luxury vehicles. (I asked. Yes, they have good insurance.) The power's out at their house, which means their security system is probably unarmed. The tree fell with such ferocity that a giant shard of bark impaled itself in Al and Allison's yard, which I must say, was impressive (as was her Easter ham!). Once Luke's haircut was over and it was his turn to hear the story, a simple look from me sent him into uproarious laughter, where he had to turn his head and his face turned beet red. When Allison asked what his deal was, I said he had to sneeze, which he then faked. (Good save, Mom.) My stylist was working on me, while the couple made the rounds of all the stylists who were TRYING to CUT HAIR to show them the pictures ("Oh, sorry, that's my Easter ham...anyway...) Allison asked us where we lived, and I told her on the South side of town, which she sort of snubbed her nose at. But hell, my internet and power aren't out. Plus, I was trying to come up with a good comeback to my Pastor's wife calling him a giant marshmallow (non-sequitur alert), but my mind was about to explode.
Another friend of mine sent me a private message on Facebook today, acknowledging that it was a remembrance of Bereaved Mother's Day, for mothers who've lost children or babies or embryos, or their uteri. She knows I grieved the loss of my reproductive organs (aside from my ovaries) and I don't talk about it much, and have sort of blocked from my mind the miscarriage I had in 1998. I told her it was just God's way of letting me know that something was terribly wrong and that it wasn't time for me to have a baby. I was addicted to narcotics when I got pregnant and had a miscarriage the first time, in August of 1998. I was only 8 weeks along, and it was all relatively event-free. I got clean in February of 1999 and conceived Luke in May of 1999, when I was healthy (I also quit smoking for 7 years at that point, only to start up again upon my separation.). I was lucky and blessed with a healthy son, the only child God chose to put in my care, even after failed attempts at having another child, fertility drugs (you want to see me fucked up? Throw me on fertility drugs, whoa!) and extensive testing, only to find out I had too much scar tissue from my c-section with Luke to reproduce again. I'm very lucky I had the child I had, and he's more than enough for me to handle.
Pastor Dave thinks a week of work camp would do my soul good. I kinda implied a swift "No way!" but let him explain what he got out of his work camp trips through the years. Face it, I'm sending Luke more to man him up a little than witness to people about God, though he'll do that too. It just doesn't seem to be my cup of tea. Camp Hilton? Camp Hyatt? Anywhere but Camp Miklasz is cool, as long as there's air conditioning, a cozy bed and a nice shower. Too bad I can't rent a house for a week up in Michigan and chill out lakeside, like SOME people I know.
Tomorrow, I'm meeting with Luke's principal to talk about the bullying. Here's praying I don't go mental on her, don't swear and present the facts as I know them, as they were relayed to me by my boy. My depression has lifted enough where I'm ready for my Mama Bear claws to tease without actually jabbing someone in the heart, though I did tell Luke tonight to tell his idiot friend, who said our family was full of losers, if he knew what "roadkill" was. Shame on me.
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” - Bertrand Russell
With that said, the current events of my virtual universe have to come to an end so I can get some sleep. Goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment